It takes the TSA too long to make changes because too many
things require approval from the department, which oversees it,
Representative John Mica, a Florida Republican, said in an
interview today in Bloomberg’s Washington office.

The TSA should be given “the authority to whack and hack
some of the bad out,” Mica said.

TSA Administrator John Pistole told lawmakers in February
he was working to make the agency into “a more agile, high-
performing organization.” The ability to quickly adapt
procedures based on intelligence information and threats is
“paramount to effective security,” he said. The agency was
created in November 2001 in response to the Sept. 11 attacks.

“TSA has been part of DHS from the beginning, and we
believe the productive relationship we have with our partner
agencies is critical to our continued shared goal of keeping
Americans safe,” Greg Soule, a TSA spokesman, said today in an
e-mail.

The role of the TSA chief should be elevated, Mica said.
The agency’s administrator should be among the first officials
the president appoints, be paid more and have more control over
the agency’s security operations, he said.

“It shouldn’t be a third-tier appointment -- it should be
right upfront so somebody’s always in the position,” Mica said.
“You’ve got to have somebody in charge, you’ve got to have a
better definition of what they do, you’ve got to be able to pay
them better.”

Administrator Turnover

More than 200 TSA employees earn more than the
administrator, he said. The agency has had five administrators
and multiple periods without one, Mica said.

There have been 25,000 security breaches at U.S. airports
since 2001, Representative Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican,
said yesterday at a hearing on the TSA.

The TSA needs to devise a plan for developing its
explosive-detecting baggage-screening systems, the Government
Accountability Office said in a report released this week.

Mica decried proposals from two Republican lawmakers,
Chaffetz and Representative Mike D. Rogers of Alabama, to add
more explosive-detecting dogs in airports.

``That scares me, because if TSA gets a whiff of that,
we’ll have the biggest kennel in the world,’’ Mica said.